Three basic characteristics of crime

1. Crime is an act that endangers society, that is, it has certain social harm.

2. A crime is a violation of the criminal law, that is, it has criminal illegality.

3. Crime is an act that should be punished by penalty, that is, it should be punished.

criminal behavior

The concept of crime is a highly accurate summary of various internal and external characteristics of crime, and an accurate and brief explanation of the connotation and extension of crime. The concept of crime is generally divided into formal concept, substantive concept and mixed concept. The concept of crime in China's criminal law is a mixed concept of crime with the unity of form and essence. History of the Emperor Xuandi: "Nowadays, many people write about criminals, and I feel sorry for them." Song Sima Guang's "On Words Forgiving Past Events and Not Forgetting Past Events": "On the 23rd of this month, you should forgive the past events and not forget them, and take the crime of official Li Shu as the context."

Crime: Whoever commits an illegal act shall be punished by criminal law.

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History of the Emperor Xuandi: "Nowadays, many people write about criminals, and I feel sorry for them."

Sima Guang's "On Things Before Forgiveness": "On the 23rd of this month, I wrote that Li Shu, an official, should forgive the former and execute it according to the context."

Chapter 37 of Water Margin: "Villains are criminals distributed in Jiangzhou? Today, people have missed the night and have nowhere to rest. "

Hong Shen? "Bridge of Five Kui" Act I: "Almost nothing you did today was not a crime."

Conceptual explanation

Formal concept

commit a crime

Article 1 of the French Criminal Code (18 10): "A crime punished by law for violating the police penalty is called a crime against the police; Crimes punished by law are called misdemeanors; Crimes that are punished by corporal punishment according to law are called felony. "

The formal concept of crime originates from the principle of legally prescribed punishment for a crime, and it is a criminal concept derived from the principle of legally prescribed punishment for a crime. The concept of formal crime focuses on the criminal illegality of behavior, and takes criminal illegality as the only criterion to distinguish crime from non-crime.

The form of the concept of crime refers to the definition of crime in the sense of legal norms. Therefore, the formal concept of crime can also be called the legal concept of crime. Compared with society, law is a formal thing, and it is the identification of certain social relations or social facts. However, this legal form has a normative effect on social relations or social facts, thus making such social relations or social facts legal. On the issue of crime, crime is an objective social fact and an act of negative evaluation by society according to certain value standards. But before the criminal law, this kind of behavior is not illegal and cannot be a crime in the sense of criminal law. It is through the provisions of criminal law that a certain behavior is transformed from negative social evaluation to criminal behavior in criminal law. It can be seen that the formal concept of crime has substantive legal content. More importantly, the concept of criminal form endows crimes with criminal illegality, provides legal standards for identifying crimes, and is of great significance for safeguarding human rights and ensuring the correct implementation of criminal law.

Entity concept

Article 6 of the Criminal Code of the Soviet Union (1922): "Any act or omission that endangers society and threatens the foundation of the Soviet system and the legal order established by the workers and peasants' regime during the transition period to the capitalist system is considered a crime."

The essential concept of crime is not satisfied with the legal definition of crime, but tries to reveal the social and political content hidden behind the law. The essential concept of crime is not to regard crime as a simple legal phenomenon, but to first regard crime as a social phenomenon and reveal the essence of crime in the connection between crime and society. Because the substantive concept of crime breaks through the legal form to understand crime, it answers the substantive question of why an act is defined as a crime by criminal law to some extent. The establishment of the concept of the essence of crime, putting crime in the social field of vision, analyzing the correlation between crime and social structure, and revealing the basis of why crime should be punished by punishment are obviously of great significance for deepening the understanding of crime as a social phenomenon.

Mixed concept

Article 7 of the Criminal Code of the Soviet Union (1960) stipulates: "Any harmful act that infringes on the social system, political and economic system, socialist ownership, citizens' personal rights and freedoms, political rights and freedoms, labor rights and freedoms, property rights and freedoms and other rights and freedoms stipulated in the criminal law of the Soviet Union is considered a crime."

This concept points out the formal characteristics of crime, limits crime within the scope stipulated by criminal law, and thus clarifies the criminal illegality of crime. More importantly, this concept of crime reveals the essence of crime, especially its social harmfulness. Therefore, the concept of mixed crime is different from the concept of formal crime and the concept of substantive crime. Of course, in the mixed concept of crime, when the form is consistent with the essence, the problem of determining crime will be easily solved. However, when there is a conflict between form and substance, for example, if the behavior is criminally illegal without social harm, or if the behavior is socially harmful without criminal illegality, whether the formal characteristics are subordinate to the substantive content or the substantive content is not subordinate to the formal characteristics is a question worthy of study.

Article 13 of China's Criminal Law stipulates that a crime is: "All acts that endanger national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, split the country, subvert the people's democratic dictatorship and the socialist system, disrupt social and economic order, infringe on state-owned property or property collectively owned by working people, infringe on citizens' personal rights, democratic rights and other rights, and other acts that endanger society are all crimes, but the circumstances are obviously minor and the harm is not great.

Classification introduction

economic crimes

First of all, felony and misdemeanor.

Of all the crime classifications, felony and misdemeanor are the most classic. This classification is not only popular in civil law countries, but also recognized by common law countries. In civil law countries, the distinction between felony and misdemeanor comes from French Criminal Code 18 10. Besides felonies and misdemeanors, there are also crimes against the police. In common law countries, felony, as a special crime, has a specific meaning and refers to cruel, cruel, evil or despicable things. Therefore, the classification of felony and misdemeanor has different connotations in the two legal systems.

Felony and misdemeanor are mainly divided according to the severity of crime, and the significance of division lies in two aspects of entity. The division of felony and misdemeanor is of certain significance in the identification of crime and the application of punishment. For example, the scope of punishment for attempted crime is related to felony and misdemeanor. Attempted felonies are generally punished, while attempted misdemeanors are only punished on occasions prescribed by law. The application of punishment is more directly related to the division of felony and misdemeanor. For example, probation, generally speaking, can only be applied to misdemeanors. From the procedural point of view, the division of felony and crime has certain significance in the choice of litigation procedure and the determination of jurisdiction level. For example, if the proceedings are divided into ordinary procedures and summary procedures, summary procedures can only be applied to minor crimes. In addition, when determining the level of jurisdiction, it is also a general principle that felonies are under the jurisdiction of higher courts and misdemeanors are under the jurisdiction of lower courts.

There are no explicit provisions on felony and misdemeanor in our criminal law, but there are provisions on "light crime" and "light punishment" in the criminal law. Compared with "light crime" and "light punishment", there are of course cases of "heavy crime" and "heavy punishment". The light and heavy crimes here do not refer to the difference between different kinds of crimes, but to the difference between the same kind of crimes. For example, the crime of intentional homicide in China's criminal law can be divided into two situations: first, the basic composition, sentenced to death, life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment 10 years or more; The second is to lighten the composition and be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than 3 years 10 years. The lesser charge of intentional homicide here is the misdemeanor of intentional homicide.

Second, natural crimes and statutory crimes

Natural crime and statutory crime are a kind of crime classification in theory, which involves the basic understanding of the nature of crime, so it is very important.

The distinction between natural crimes and statutory crimes can be traced back to ancient Roman law. Ancient Roman law applied the evil theory in ancient Greek ethics to the understanding of crime, and established two different types of crime: the crime of seduction and the crime of forbidding. In modern times, Garofalo's concept of natural crime obviously contained the content of self-loathing in ancient Roman law, and on this basis, a dichotomy between natural crime and statutory crime was formed. In the criminal law theory of modern continental law system, the classification of natural crimes and statutory crimes has been widely recognized, but the criteria for distinguishing the two types of crimes have not been agreed. In the criminal law theory of the common law system, there are similar classifications of natural crimes and statutory crimes, but due to the fuzziness of the classification standards, there are many opinions denying this in theory. In my opinion, the distinction between natural crime and statutory crime involves the relationship between ethics and law. Generally speaking, morality and law are unified. Anything that violates the law is immoral, and vice versa. However, it is an undeniable fact that the degree of violation of ethics is heavier and lighter. Especially in the case of the increasingly developed subsidiary criminal law, some crimes that have nothing to do with ethics just because they violate legal rules are gradually increasing. In this case, the distinction between natural crime and statutory crime has certain significance. Of course, the distinction between natural crime and statutory crime is relative and can be transformed into each other. In the evolution of social ethics, legal crimes such as environmental crimes have become more and more natural crimes, which is the so-called natural criminalization of legal crimes. The classification of natural crime and statutory crime has certain significance in criminal law. For example, on the issue of illegal consciousness, there are different views on whether the establishment of intentional crime requires illegal consciousness. Among them, the theory of distinction between natural criminals and statutory criminals focuses on the distinction between natural criminals and statutory criminals, arguing that natural criminals do not need intentional illegal consciousness, while statutory criminals need intentional illegal consciousness. Although this view may not be completely correct, it still shows that the difference in nature between natural crime and statutory crime may affect the content of its constituent elements.

Three. Crimes against private interests and crimes against public interests

In the criminal law theory of continental law system, according to the nature of crimes against legal interests, crimes can be divided into crimes against private interests and crimes against public interests Because public law interests can be divided into social legal interests and national legal interests, crimes can be divided into the following three categories: crimes against personal legal interests, crimes against social legal interests and crimes against national legal interests. This is the most popular crime classification in the criminal law theory of continental law system.

The original historical origin of the dichotomy of crimes against personal legal interests, crimes against social legal interests and crimes against national legal interests can be traced back to ancient Roman law. In ancient Roman law, crimes were divided into public crimes and private crimes.

Public crime refers to a crime that infringes on the legal interests of the state and society, and its legal consequence is punishment;

Private crime refers to the act of infringing on personal legal interests.

At first, it was considered as a dispute between individuals, only a debt relationship occurred, and the victim could only claim damages in accordance with ordinary procedures. Later, the victim can file a criminal private prosecution for private crimes, but he loses the right to claim damages. In the Middle Ages, the classification of public crimes and private crimes was replaced by secular crimes and religious crimes. Secular crimes refer to crimes under the jurisdiction of secular authorities, including treason and crime. Religious crimes refer to crimes tried by the church, including blasphemy and heresy. Beccaria divides crimes into three categories: the first category is crimes that directly endanger society or its representatives, that is, crimes that endanger the legitimate interests of the country. The second category of crimes against private security is crimes against personal legal interests. The third kind of crime belongs to the behavior that is contrary to what the public interest requires every citizen to do and not to do, that is, the crime that endangers the social legal interests. Among the above three types of crimes, the first and third types are essentially crimes against public interests, similar to public crimes in Roman law, while the third type is essentially crimes against private interests, similar to private crimes in Roman law. This kind of crime classification has been carried forward by other criminologists of the criminal classical school, and has become the general theory of crime classification in the criminal law theory of the continental law system, laying the foundation for the construction of the criminal law specific provisions system of the continental law system countries. For example, the French Criminal Code 18 10 regards crimes against public interests and crimes against private interests as the basic framework of its criminal law provisions. It divides crimes into two categories, namely, serious crimes and misdemeanours that harm public interests and serious crimes and misdemeanours that harm private interests. It regards serious crimes and misdemeanours that harm public interests as the first part of the specific provisions of criminal law and serious crimes and misdemeanours that harm private interests as the second part of the specific provisions of criminal law, thus forming a system of specific provisions of criminal law. Another example is the German Criminal Code 187 1, which does not divide crimes into crimes endangering public interests and crimes endangering private interests, but establishes a specific criminal law system on the basis of summarizing crimes endangering national legal interests, social legal interests and personal legal interests. It can be seen that the classification of crimes against public interests and crimes against private interests is of great significance for the establishment of the specific provisions system of criminal law.

China's criminal law does not adopt the division between crimes that do not infringe on private interests and crimes that infringe on public interests, while China's criminal law system is mainly constructed according to the nature of social relations infringed by crimes. However, the nature and content of social relations can also be divided from the angles of crimes against national interests, crimes against social interests and crimes against personal interests. For example, crimes against national security, crimes against national defense interests, crimes of corruption and bribery, crimes of dereliction of duty, and crimes of military personnel violating their duties all have the nature of crimes against national legal interests. Crimes of endangering public security, disrupting the order of socialist market economy and disturbing the order of social management have the nature of crimes against social legal interests. Crimes that violate citizens' personal rights, democratic rights and property have the nature of crimes that infringe on individual legal interests. It can be seen that distinguishing between crimes against private interests and crimes against public interests is of certain significance for correctly understanding the specific provisions system of criminal law in China.

Four. Crime at home and abroad

Crime in the general sense of criminal law refers to family crime. When it comes to international criminal law, the problem of international crime arises, and it is of theoretical significance to distinguish between domestic crime and international crime.

Domestic crime refers to the violation of domestic criminal law, so its criminal behavior can be identified according to the criminal laws of various countries. International crime refers to the violation of international criminal law. Because of the different understanding of international criminal law, the scope and types of international criminal law are not as determined as domestic criminal law. It is generally believed that crimes are all crimes in domestic criminal law at first, and international crimes are developed from foreign-related crimes and transnational crimes, so international crimes are closely related to domestic crimes. Foreign-related crimes refer to crimes with foreign factors, including foreign subjects, such as foreigners; The object is foreign-related, such as the victim is a foreigner or the harm is foreign property; Crimes involve foreign affairs, such as extraterritorial crimes, and so on. Although there are foreign-related factors in foreign-related crimes, it is still different from international crimes because the standard for identifying such crimes is domestic criminal law, and the two cannot be confused. As for transnational crime, it refers to crimes that span two or more countries. Similarly, there are cross-border crimes, which refer to crimes that span two or more regions. The transnational nature of transnational crime makes it a foreign-related crime, but transnational crime has the characteristics different from general foreign-related crimes, that is, criminal acts span different countries. The narrowest expression of this transnational crime is the crime in different places, that is, the place where the act was committed and the place where the result occurred are in two different countries, and one of them is in China. Broadly speaking, the crime itself is committed in different countries, such as transnational drug trafficking, or the same crime is committed in different countries.

The existence of the above-mentioned foreign-related crimes and transnational crimes shows that crimes cannot be confined to one country, and with the increase of international social exchanges, crimes related to various countries will inevitably appear. In order to maintain international public order, it is necessary to regard some crimes endangering the international community as international crimes. International crime is developed from foreign-related crimes and transnational crimes. Compared with domestic crimes, international crimes are independent and compliant. The independence of international crime means that international crime, as a crime endangering the international community, not only violates the domestic criminal law of the countries concerned, but also violates the norms of international criminal law formulated by the international community in the form of concluding international conventions. International crime also needs to be confirmed in domestic criminal law, which is called nationalization of international crime. Therefore, international crime is consistent with domestic crime. In this sense, an international crime recognized in a country's criminal law must also be its domestic crime. Therefore, the difference between domestic crime and international crime is relative, and we should see the close relationship between them.

Function introduction

commit a crime

Social harmfulness

Behavior is harmful to society and is the basic feature of crime. The social harmfulness of crime refers to the harm caused by crime to the interests of the country and the people. The essential feature of crime lies in endangering the interests of the country and the people. If an act is unlikely to cause harm to society, there is no need to stipulate it as a crime in the criminal law; Although an act has certain social harm, it is not considered a crime if the circumstances are obviously minor and the harm is not great. Therefore, the social harmfulness of crime is the unity of quality and quantity.

Criminal illegality

Criminal illegality refers to the violation of criminal law, that is, a person's behavior conforms to the constitutive requirements of crime stipulated in the specific provisions of criminal law. Criminal illegality is the legal feature of crime and a negative legal evaluation of criminal behavior. Under the principle of legally prescribed punishment for a crime, there is no crime without criminal violation. Therefore, criminal illegality is the basic feature of crime.

The illegality of criminal violation is different from other illegal acts. Legally, illegal acts can be divided into civil illegal acts, administrative illegal acts and criminal illegal acts in addition to litigation illegal acts. The * * * feature of illegal behavior is that it violates the law, so the law is the legal cause of illegal behavior. Legal provisions are the punishment power of various criminal acts and other departmental laws, and their norms are mainly composed of two parts: hypothesis and handling. For example, the criminal law stipulates that "intentional homicide" is a crime; "Death penalty, life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment 10 years or more" is a statutory punishment. Crime is the hypothetical part of criminal law norms, and statutory punishment is the processing part of criminal law norms. When the behavior meets the hypothetical conditions of intentional homicide stipulated in the criminal law, it should be sentenced to death, life imprisonment or fixed-term imprisonment of 10 years or more. In the theory of criminal law, the hypothetical part of criminal law norms stipulates the constitutive elements of crime. Only when the actor's behavior conforms to the constitutive requirements of this crime can his behavior constitute a crime and be punished. Therefore, the illegality of criminal illegality does not refer to the violation of the hypothetical conditions in the criminal law norms, but is accurate and consistent. Obviously, the illegality of criminal illegality refers to the premise of prohibiting violation of criminal law norms. For example, the provisions of the criminal law on the crime of intentional homicide indicate that the criminal law prohibits homicide. When the act meets the constitutive requirements of intentional homicide, it is a violation of the criminal law prohibiting homicide. It can be seen that the prohibitive provisions of criminal law are inherent in criminal law norms. Whether a person's behavior has criminal illegality should be based on whether his behavior meets the constitutive requirements of crime stipulated in the criminal law.

Infringe on legal interests

The infringement of legal interests refers to the infringement of interests protected by criminal law. The interests protected by criminal law here are legal interests. The legal interest of criminal law is an important interest related to social life, which is clearly listed in the concept of crime in Article 13 of China's Criminal Law, namely, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, people's democratic dictatorship and socialist system, social order and economic order, state-owned property or property collectively owned by working people, property privately owned by citizens, personal rights, democratic rights and other rights of citizens. The above legal interests can be divided into national legal interests, social legal interests and personal legal interests. These legal interests are infringed by crimes and protected by criminal law. Therefore, the infringement of legal interests reveals the real social content of crime.

The infringement of legal interests is clearly stipulated in the criminal law, so whether an act infringes legal interests should be based on the provisions of the criminal law. In this sense, criminal illegality is the premise of infringement of legal interests. If an act does not have criminal illegality, there can be no infringement of legal interests. Therefore, the infringement of legal interests other than criminal illegality is not recognized, which is also an inevitable requirement of the principle of legality. It can be seen that although the infringement of legal interests is an exposition of the substantive social content of crime, it is still limited by the criminal illegality of crime. In this sense, the infringement of legal interests is the infringement of legal interests within the scope of criminal infringement.

There are two kinds of infringement of legal interests: one is actual infringement, and the other is danger. Actual infringement refers to the actual infringement of legal interests caused by actions, such as intentional homicide, murder, and infringement of the legal interests of others' lives. Danger refers to the possibility that an act may infringe on legal interests. In this case, there is no actual damage, but the law is conducive to the dangerous state of infringement, so it is also considered to be an infringement of legal interests and should be subject to criminal punishment. In China's criminal law, most acts are defined as crimes because they are actually harmful to legal interests. For example, statutory crimes are consequential crimes that infringe legal interests. There are also a few acts that are defined as crimes because of the danger of infringing on legal interests, which includes abstract danger and concrete danger. Among them, abstract danger refers to the danger presumed by legislation, which does not need to be identified in judicial activities, as long as the behavior stipulated by law can constitute a crime. Specific danger refers to the danger identified by judicial organs. If there is no such danger, even if there is an act stipulated by law, it does not constitute a crime. In addition, the preparatory behavior, attempted behavior and suspended behavior of the crime are also the actual infringement results that have not caused the infringement of legal interests, and they are also punished because of the danger of infringement of legal interests.

Punishable

Being punished by penalty is an important feature of crime, which shows that the state punishes acts that violate criminal law and infringe on legal interests. Crime is the premise of applying punishment, and punishment is the legal consequence of crime. If an act should not be punished by punishment, it means that it is not a crime. Being punished is not a negative legal consequence of criminal violation and infringement of legal interests, but is of great significance to the legislative provisions and judicial determination of crimes. In legislation, being punished has a restrictive effect on what kind of behavior the legislature defines as a crime. Only when the legislature thinks it is necessary to punish an act with punishment will it be defined as a crime in the criminal law and given a negative legal evaluation. In judicature, being punished is also of guiding significance for the judicial organs to divide the boundary between crime and non-crime. According to the proviso about the concept of crime in Article 13 of the Criminal Law, if the circumstances of an act are obviously minor, it is not considered as a crime. These acts are not considered as crimes and need not be punished. Therefore, whether it should be punished is also an important feature of crime.

What needs to be pointed out here is that being punished and actually being punished are two different concepts. An act does not constitute a crime if it lacks the punitive nature of punishment. But in fact not all crimes are punished. Article 37 of China's criminal law stipulates: "If the circumstances of the crime are minor and there is no need to be sentenced to punishment, criminal punishment may be exempted." The premise of this exemption from criminal punishment is that the act constitutes a criminal act. Although this minor crime is punishable, it is exempt from criminal punishment because it does not require sentencing.

Brief introduction of composition

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The constitution of a crime refers to the determination of the social harmfulness and degree of a specific act in accordance with the provisions of China's criminal law. It is the organic unity of all the objective and subjective elements necessary for the act to constitute a crime, and it is the basis for the actor to bear criminal responsibility. The establishment of any crime must have four elements, namely, the subject of crime, the subjective aspect of crime, the object of crime and the objective aspect of crime.

Characteristics of crime constitution:

First of all, the constitution of crime is an organic whole of subject, object and subjective and objective elements.

Second, the constitution of a crime is a legal symbol of illegality and responsibility.

Third, the constitution of a crime is the legal standard for determining a crime (Criminal Law (Third Edition), Part II, Chapter V, Section II)

The constitution of a crime in China's criminal law refers to the sum of all the subjective and objective elements necessary to constitute a crime stipulated in the criminal law. Although there are many doubts about this concept and the crime constitution system established by this concept in recent years, most people still accept this concept. ) This concept shows that the constitution of a crime has the following three characteristics:

First, the constitution of a crime is the sum of a series of criminal elements. Any constituent elements of a specific crime contain many elements, including some universally applicable elements stipulated in the general provisions of criminal law and some elements stipulated in specific provisions. The constitution of a crime does not refer to a single element, nor is it a simple addition of these elements, but an inseparable organic whole of these elements. For example, Article 263 of China's Criminal Law stipulates that "robbing public or private property by violence, coercion or other means" is the crime of robbery. According to the provisions of this article, combined with some provisions of the general principles of criminal law, the constitution of robbery is an organic combination of the following elements:

(1) Robbery infringes on the ownership of public and private property.

(2) The perpetrator of robbery must be a person who has reached the age of criminal responsibility and has the ability of criminal responsibility.

(3) The method of committing a crime must be to rob property by means of violence or coercion.

(4) Subjectively, the perpetrator intentionally commits a crime and has the intention of illegally possessing property. Only the unity of these subjective and objective elements can constitute robbery. Secondly, the constitutive requirements of a crime refer to the factual characteristics necessary to determine that an act constitutes a crime. These factual characteristics are the general standards for legislators to identify crimes after abstracting and summarizing specific criminal phenomena. Any specific crime can be manifested through a large number of factual features, which determine that this crime is different from all other crimes. Zhang San's robbery and Li Si's robbery are different because they have many different factual characteristics. But no matter Zhang San's robbery, Li Si's robbery or others' robbery, there are some * * * characteristics, which not only embodies the characteristics of robbery, but also reflects the unique social harm of robbery. Legislators choose some key factual features from a large number of factual features of specific robbery as constitutive elements of robbery. In other words, not all factual features can be elements of a crime. The criterion to determine whether a feature is a constitutive element of a crime is its significance in determining the nature of behavior and the degree of social harm. The above elements of robbery are of decisive significance to reveal the nature and social harm of robbery. In addition to these four elements, there are many factual characteristics of specific robbery, such as whether the robber is a man or a woman, whether the object of robbery is cash or goods, whether the robbery is carried out in a downtown area or a remote village, and whether the violence is carried out with bare hands or weapons. These implementation features play a certain role in investigating and solving cases, obtaining litigation evidence or determining the severity of criminal responsibility, and then affect the severity of sentencing, but they are not decisive for the crime of robbery, so they cannot be the constituent elements of robbery.

Third, the necessary elements that constitute a crime are stipulated by the criminal law. In other words, what kind of implementation characteristics can be used as the constitutive elements of a crime is chosen by legislators and stipulated by the criminal law. Conversely, only through the clear provisions of the criminal law can the factual characteristics of a crime become the constitutive elements of a crime. This reflects the requirement of a legally prescribed punishment for a crime and shows that criminal illegality is also one of the basic attributes of a crime. Therefore, whether an act has the constitutive requirements of a crime is consistent with whether the act violates the criminal law. This also shows that the constitutive elements of a crime are not theoretical explanations, but legal ones.